Stress Control is a class that aims to turn you into your own therapist by teaching you a range of skills you can use to fight back against stress and similar problems.

The result of over 30 years of research and development, and taught all over the country, the course is based on an approach called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). It is for people who want to learn some ways to control common problems such as stress, anxiety, low mood, panic, poor sleep, burnout, loss of confidence or low self-esteem.

Stress control information

What happens at each session?

Each session lasts about 90 minutes with a short break half way through

Each session covers a different element of stress control:

Session 1 – Information about Stress : You will find out what stress is and what it is not, the main signs, the vicious circles that keep it alive and how Stress Control works.

Session 2 – Controlling your body: We get down to tackling stress in this session. You will learn how your body signs feed stress. We look at why we get stressed and how the body reacts to it. You will learn three skills – breathing retraining, exercise and progressive relaxation and look at caffeine

Session 3 – Controlling your thoughts: You will learn how your thinking feeds stress. We will teach you ways to ‘think your way out of stress’

Session 4 – Controlling your actions: This session looks at how the way we act feeds stress. You’ll learn ways to face your fears and a skill called ‘Problem Solving’.

Session 5 – Controlling your panic: Panicky feelings are part and parcel of stress. This session teaches you ways to control them. We will teach you about using your breathing to calm your body and, hence, your mind.

Session 6 – Controlling your sleep, Wellbeing and Controlling your future:Poor sleep is often a result of stress. So, in this session, we will look at skills to help you get a good night’s sleep. Wellbeing starts the final set of skills as we look at ways of staying on top of stress.

Stress Control Benefits

Who can benefit from Stress Control?

Stress Control was developed by Jim White, a psychologist from Glasgow. CBT has a strong evidence base for people experiencing mild- moderate depression and anxiety as does Stress Control itself. The course is used all over the country. It can be useful if you are experiencing Stress, low mood , anxiety, anger issues or low self esteem or want to learn more about them

We run courses throughout the year across the region. All of our courses are free and involve weekly sessions for 6 weeks. Browse the course locations and start dates below.

Stress control courses

Find a course

We run courses at locations across the Valleys, all of these are free to attend and last 6 weeks.